Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
The new year is kicking off with a Trixie-approved Oregon rain here in the desert. I fell in love with the rain when we lived in the Pacific Northwest and would specifically go out to photograph in it. On this day it rained on and off but for a little while it was absolutely chucking it down. These photos of a cinnamon teal and northern shoveler were taken 18 seconds apart as they fed in Long Lake.
📷: Canon 7D II | Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x III
🗓️: December 23, 2015
A tranquil scene as a cinnamon teal sleeps on a rainy day at Ridgefield. I remember spending long hours on the auto tour, often sitting in a spot like Long Lake and watching to see what came by, but was surprised when looking back at my journals to see some rainy days I’d stay the entire day. You’d think, given I’m the one living it, I’d be better at remembering the details of my life.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm f/4 + 1.4x
🗓️: June 6, 2010
I had a complicated relationship with bullfrogs in Oregon as while I loved seeing frogs they were a constant reminder of how much invasive species had permanently altered the ecosystem. When we took a family trip to the other Portland and I saw familiar faces in the ponds, I wondered if I was the only visitor here. I didn’t have a magic computer in my pocket back then but after 15 years I finally looked it up and they are indeed native to Maine.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 100-400mm
🗓️: July 14, 2010
One of the many nice things about my leave of absence this winter is that if we got a gentle rain I could step outside and soak it in, instead of driving home in it or even worse coming out at the end of the work day and seeing it had rained while I was trapped in the bowels of the building.
📷: Nikon Z 7II | Nikon 105mm macro
🗓️: January 7, 2024
A hoary marmot feasts in a mountain meadow on a cold rainy day in the fall. Unlike the pikas they share their habitat with, they spend most of the year in hibernation and need to put on plenty of fat reserves to make it through the long winters at Mount Rainier.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm | Canon 1.4X
🗓️: September 23, 2014
Raindrops accumulate on the head of a red-winged blackbird on a damp day in the Pacific Northwest. Brings back a lot of memories of finding a favorite spot on the auto tour at Ridgefield, rolling down the windows, and reveling in the rain. I didn’t know it at the time but this was my penultimate visit before we left Oregon.
📷: Sony A6500 | Canon 500mm | Canon 1.4X
🗓️: October 1, 2017
As someone who loved even the ubiquitous rain in Portland, rain in the desert is quite special to me. When I woke to rain last month I waited for it to slow then hurried into the backyard for some macro shots of one of our saguaros. I had to work fast, the spines dry quickly and lose the wonderful colors, a couple have already dried here. The water drops on the skin evaporate quickly and gravity is constantly tugging at the drops dripping from the spines. One day I’ll play around with a watering can to get just the right droplets on my favorite areole, perhaps a fun project for a day when my mobility is limited, but that’s not what I wanted here. I didn’t want a picture of water drops on a saguaro, I wanted a picture of the rain.
📷: Nikon Z 7II | Nikon 105mm macro
🗓️: November 18, 2023
I love that we can see mountains from our backyard. Most days anyway, on this rainy day in December I had to take it mostly on faith they were still there.
From July during a summer rain with no lightning or thunder. This photoshoot was the straw that broke the camel’s back and made me start looking for a camera with focus bracketing, though it took me another 5 months to pull the trigger.
Last year after getting some confidence identifying the more common birds and mammals and reptiles of the Sonoran Desert, I decided to start learning the desert plants. I spent an evening reading up on the trees (there aren’t a bunch, this shouldn’t have been hard) but the next morning I couldn’t remember anything I had read the night before. I was a little frustrated with myself but heard a pleading voice that there had been too much that was new and to focus on the things I had to learn, not the things I wanted to learn.
As a creature of habit I knew Arizona would provide beneficial opportunities to experience something different but also that there was so much different both at work and at home that it might be overwhelming (the pandemic hasn’t helped). So I heeded that voice and put aside the guide books and stuck to familiar nearby parks rather than venturing further afield, trying out trails new to me when I felt up to a little challenge.
This summer has brought a mild awakening in being willing to learn new things, spurred on partially by the giant cactus out front that exploded in blooms after the summer monsoons and brought in a host of small creatures to feed on its bounty, and the butterflies that similarly burst into view at the same time either in our yard or on my beloved trails.
Insects have been tricky to learn but I believe this little lovely is a leaf-footed bug of the species Narnia femorata but take that with a grain of salt, I’m not a biologist much less an entomologist, and this is all new to me besides. While they apparently prefer prickly pear (the neighbors have a glorious patch) a group of them have been hanging out on this big cactus in our front yard, feeding either on the buds and blossoms like here on a rainy summer evening, or on the fruit that grew after the pollinators got to work.
Boolie 